Chats on the Farmhouse Porch

It is Wednesday again and time to chat with Patrice.
This is her week to chat on her Farmhouse Porch.

Questions

1. If you could bring someone to Patrice's porch to join in on our chat, who would you bring?

I don't know.

2. What's your favorite thing to make when fall rolls around? (Can be food, or maybe a craft.)

I love sewing in front of the fire in the wood stove.

3. How many times a month do you go to a library or bookstore?

Normally about once a week, I go to the library but right now I am so busy that I haven't gone in over a month, with no plans to which is very odd for me.

4. What things make blogs the best?

Personal interaction and making friends.

5. If someone would pay for you to take a class (any class- college-private-online-at a craft store-the sky's the limit here, my friends), what class would you take? (BTW- I wish I could go "poof" with my magic wand and make this happen for each of you!)

I would go take a week of rug hooking classes just so I could watch other (rug) hookers. I learn by watching and I think it would help me so much.

Thanks to Patrice and her lovely questions.

Today on Tuesday

I am glad it is Tuesday and that we got so much work accomplished.
I was reading up on malady's that chickens can get. After a summer
of my chickens going down hill. My hens faces were getting pale.
I know that sounds weird but chickens do get really pale faces and
their combs change color and the hens feathers were breaking off.
I was giving them extra fruits and vegetables and nothing seemed
to work. So I picked one up and noticed that it had mites.



I read all kinds of blogs that told me what to do so I cleaned and cleaned
the coops and then my husband sprayed the thing down with Seven.
We left it to sit for a whole day. The mites live in the wood so you have to really
spray the wood. Then yesterday, we powdered them in Diatomaceous Earth.
We filled a cloth bag with the stuff which looks a lot like cement and about as fine.
Then I would go into the chicken coop and catch one hen at a time. I would hold
their feet and slide them in while Ron would hold them by the head and then
we would shake them all around. We would hold them down and rub the earth under
the wings and then let them go. They would walk across the yard with dust like smoke
blowing with every step.

Catching chickens who don't want to be caught is quite a work out. I had sweat running
down my face mixing with the gray of the Diatomaceous Earth. I was covered.
Then we finally got finished and then we put the rest in the nest boxes and all over
the coop. The Diatoms are very small fossils that dry out the skin of the mite and any
other bug. Pretty amazing stuff as it is all natural.

We will repeat this next weekend. But last night when I went to check on them, they
were looking around with a happier look and there was no scratching and this weird head
shaking they would do all of the time.



Onto other things I wanted to show you a picture of my husband's first row of trees
that he got planted yesterday. These are some pine trees that he grew from seeds that
he collected. He got his water line in and then these guys in the ground. We are having
our typical heat wave for September so it got too hot to do much more. He has some crab
apples he is going to plant and some maples. All of them he has grown from seed.


I hope you had a very nice weekend. I didn't get
much visiting around to your blogs this weekend.
I will be trying to visit today.
I hope you have a very nice week.

~Kim~

Cleaning the Garden

I just couldn't take out the sunflowers today. They looked so pretty
just blowing in the breeze. The sky was so blue and they
just looked so happy out there.



We took out the onions and I got these two baskets of brown
onions. I braided them and hung them out on the fence that
goes around the swimming pool to dry. I did fix
onion rings tonight for dinner. They were wonderful.



This is the musk melon. We only got one cantaloupe this year
from the cantaloupe but the musk melon did pretty good. It is now
in the back refrigerator.



This is part of the stuff we took out, well not me,
Ron and the tractor. I just pulled the hoses out and
hula hoed my tomatoes, and peppers and around the
eggplant. I am going to keep those in until after the first frost.



This is looking at it from another direction. We took down
the arch with the morning glories. They had died in the last
week and I was tired of looking at the sad things.
This will be filled with new little trees to grow big so my husband
can start growing them for Bonsai.

I went around to all of the pumpkins to turn them and
set them on the bottoms so they bottoms would be flat.
These are the ones that just fell off.


I thought they looked so pretty today. They just
look like fall. I did want to make some pumpkin muffins
or pumpkin pie. Even pumpkin ice cream.

This is what we did today. It was nice to be able to work
like this and get so much done. It does so much for my mind
to see the weeds gone.
I would though like to put in some sweet peas this year.
Every year I tell myself I have to remember to plant my sweet
peas and every year I forget. I don't want to forget.

Thanks for stopping by today,

~Kim~

Lovely Fridays

Don't ya just love Fridays? I think they are just the best.
I got up this morning and took the camera to take some pictures
of the last of my flowers. I am sick of weeds. So I expect, to just
tell my husband when he gets on the tractor, " Just Go For It."
It will be hard to say though. They do look pretty. I don't sew
fast enough but to do a sewing blog about once a month.

I left the flash on because you can see the colors better
I haven't seen my grand children in a while and I had finished school and
I was feeling very lonesome so I sent Meg a text and she came
over and she knitted and I hooked and we had a very pleasant afternoon
with the kids and then Kessie came over with her kids the next
day so I am a very happy Grama going into this labor day weekend. Those
of you that have grand children, does your grandma love tank get empty
like mine? I just get so lonesome for them as well as my kids I don't know
what I would do if I didn't see them on a regular basis.


I have had a thing about crows this year. I just love the way
they look and so I bought some patterns that had crows in them
because I thought they would be easy.



Maybe for normal people this would be easy. Can you see what
I did? I cut the fabric too small so It isn't centered. I even thought
about just cutting off the crow and using it as a patch. I am so challenged
when it comes to Counted Cross stitch. I have to do it in a room that
is quiet, has good light and I have to wear my head gear I got so I can
see. Then of course there is that whole counting thing. I can't count.
If I had to count things to cook dinner my family would starve.
But like the line from Galaxy Quest, "Never give up, never surrender," that is how I feel.
I know that someday if I keep doing it, someday I will be able to count. Then I will tackle linen.
Then the other day I got this:



It is a lovely magazine with some of my favorite patterns by
my favorite designers. I really have enjoyed looking at it.
I will make something out of it pretty soon. I just am tired
in my mind and counted cross stitch I need to be in top mental
form. I was in top mental form when I started the crow. Look how
it turned out. Rug hooking is so much easier because for one thing
I can see.

I love Labor Day weekend, because it is the push to start getting the hatches
battened down and get things cleaned up around here.
Here is my favorite verse for Labor Day weekend:
"There is nothing, better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot."
(Ecclesiastes 3:22)

So we will be enjoying our work.

Have a lovely weekend,
~Kim~